And yet, here we are. Despite being stacked with recognizable talent and solid matchups from top to bottom, UFC 200 simply fell flat for the most part, ending the Zuffa Era™ with a faint whisper instead of the triumphant bang that we were all expecting.

One of the best on-paper and most hyped MMA cards in memory is fast approaching, and anticipation is building to a fever pitch. And as everyone raises their hopes for what they wish will be a transcendent celebration of civilized violence at UFC 200 this weekend, we pessimists of this lovely sport start to ready our cringe faces.

But what if we could prepare ourselves for the worst? Soften the 4-ounce-gloved blow to our souls that the MMA gods are sure to deliver in their infinite, cruel, brawlability?

Well, here’s your pre-gut-punch padding, dear readers: a fight-by-fight breakdown of all the ways in which the gourmet chicken salad that is UFC 200 could turn into a total chicken s**t-show.

(That moment when you realize you just agreed to fight the face-punchiest fighter on the planet, but don’t like to get punched in the face.)

We’ll have our full recap of UFC 199 up shortly, but before we do, let’s get right into a few of the biggest non-fight highlights of the night. Firstly, it was announced on Saturday that, after a fake retirement, a cancelled fight, and a series of brutal negotiations, the welterweight rematch between Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor will be going down for realsies at UFC 202 in August. Apparently all Diaz needed to make the fight happen was to literally smack The Baldfather like a bitch, which to Dana’s credit, he agreed to.

Easily more shocking than the announcement of McGregor-Diaz II, however, was the reveal that former WWE superstar-turned-UFC-heavyweight-champion-turned-current-WWE-superstar Brock Lesnar would be making his return to the UFC at UFC 200, 100 events after he first defended his title against Frank Mir in brutal fashion, to take on a TBD opponent.

This morning, Lesnar appeared on Sportscenter to announce who exactly that opponent would be, and if you have the type of incredibly specific dyslexia that prevents you from reading headlines, then head below to get the scoop.

After an abundance of trash talk, a pre-fight press conference brawl, asking pussies if they’re still there, technical breakdowns, and moving betting lines, Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier duked it out for five rounds in an early “Fight of the Year” candidate, which went exactly how most of us thought it would. The main card of UFC 182, however, was pretty putrid.

Our excitement was at an all-time high, which is rare nowadays when it comes to MMA in general. This truly felt like 2008 all over again, but sometimes, we rely on nostalgia to compare upcoming fight cards that may or may not be worth viewing live.

Nevertheless, Jones vs. Cormier lived up to the billing, as both light heavyweights engaged in a dogfight at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV., this past Saturday night.

Brock Lesnar will likely return to the UFC in 2015, but it won’t usher in a new golden age for MMA.

The news of Lesnar’s UFC return came recently. Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletterreported that “within the [WWE], the belief is that he’s going back to the UFC, and his showing up lighter to TV last week confirmed that to people who thought it.”

Earlier this year, UFC President Dana White expressed openness to a Lesnar return, and even claimed Lesnar was willing to return. “We have a great relationship with him,” said White. “We’ll see what happens.”

Furthermore, Lesnar’s longtime friend Paul Heyman noted this summer that Lesnar still has an intense drive to compete in the Octagon.

Unlike every other time Brock Lesnar’s name has been in the headlines over the last few years, this round of “Is Lesnar coming back” speculation isn’t a gimmick to drive up pageviews during a slow news week. This appears to be the real deal. Lesnar is coming back. However, unlike conventional wisdom would have you believe, it won’t do a damn thing to turn the UFC’s fortunes around.

When CM Punk signed with the UFC last night MMA fans, pundits and every pseudo-journalist in between lost their minds either with glee, bemusement, or disgust.

There’s not necessarily one “right” way to look at the issue of the UFC signing CM Punk (whose real name is Phil Brooks). Is he killing MMA’s credibility? Yes. Is he going to be a big draw and help the UFC out of a rut? Yes.

CM Punk is killing the UFC’s credibility

Proponents of this theory are, well, kind of accurate. During the Reebok sponsorship press conference last week, the UFC boasted about the Reebok deal bringing them in line with the NFL and other major sports organizations. While the realities of that statement are dubious, it’s clear the UFC wanted viewers to leave with that “fact” as a key takeaway.

But would an NFL team sign CM Punk as a QB just because he might draw ratings and sell tickets? Hell, NFL teams wouldn’t even sign perennial attention-getter Tim Tebow who’s an actual football player. And as Bleacher Report‘s Jonathan Snowden pointed out, even Michael Jordan had to start in the minor leagues when he wanted to play baseball.

The NFL, NBA, or any other big league would never sign a 36-year-old with zero sports background just for attention and a bit of quick cash. These organizations care about legitimacy or at least the illusion of legitimacy. They want to convey class and prestige. They’re athletic contests, not Dancing with the Stars.

By signing CM Punk, the UFC admitted they are an entertainment company first and a sport second. While this has arguably been true since day one, they’ve never gone out of their way to make it so apparent before.

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for — Chael Sonnen‘s debut appearance as a professional sports-talker on ESPN. In this clip that aired earlier today on SportsCenter, Sonnen breaks down tomorrow night’s UFC 180 main event between Fabricio Werdum and Mark Hunt, answering discussion questions from some random stiff* who mispronounces Werdum’s name, disses Roy Nelson’s gut, and ends the segment by bringing up the return of Brock Lesnar. Actually, that part spurred Chael’s best line:

“I called [Lesnar's] manager Paul Heyman this morning. I said, ‘Paul, it’s Chael. I’ve got a new job on SportsCenter. If you give me a quote regarding Brock, it’ll really make me look good.’ He said ‘Chael,’ and I quote: ‘I’m sleeping,’ and then he hung up.”

* I mean, I’m sure some of you people watch ESPN and know who Chael’s straight-man is, but I don’t, and he’s not worth googling.

Don’t let the “A” in MMA fool you, mixed martial arts fighters are *not* artists…at least, not in the traditional sense of the term. Look no further than the hilariously atrocious inkwork that so often adorns their bodies for proof of this. Between the non-tribal tribal arm bands, the last name tramp stamps, and the ill-advised branding attempts, MMA fighters (and their fans — see above) sport some of the worst tattoos you’ll ever see outside of a prison cell. But who has the worst tattoo of them all? The CagePotato Roundtable investigates…

Matt Horwich‘s musical pencil is like something out of a nightmare. It’s a bunch of unrelated visual signifiers held together by an inscrutable logic, and the only thing being conveyed is dread. You wake up sweating after seeing this thing, and you tell your wife, “Shit, I had that dream about my stepfather again, but this time he was a pencil,” and she looks at you, trying to feign sympathy, but the apparition simply can’t be verbalized. Words will never do it justice, because it’s so much more than just “pencil, musical notes, angry face,” it’s what the pencil represents. That goddamned abusive drunk piece of shit, who hated himself because he couldn’t write songs like Neil Diamond, so he took it out on you and your mom. That face. You could put it on a cantaloupe, a hammer, the front of a steamboat, and it would still be him.

Look, I get it, Matt Horwich is eccentric. His concept of reality is not the same as yours. I’m trying to avoid judgment here, but I just can’t relate to the sort of mind that would put this on his body. It’s awful. A worn-down pencil with a ragged eraser. A face devoid of most human characteristics. And three notes — whole note, half note, quarter note! — flying upwards. It’s not a singing pencil. It’s a scowling pencil with musical notation ejecting from the end that is responsible for deletion, not creation. It’s a contradiction, and it’s unsettling. The pencil seems to be straining to get these notes out, and for what? To express that the artistic process is torture? Does the pencil wish it was a violin instead? Does Matt Horwich even remember getting this tattoo, or did it just kind of appear one day? You’re seeing it too, right? The pencil with the face? I’m not crazy, am I?

Well,there’s a reason you didn’t hear about it: It didn’t happen. Thankfully, one of our favorite past times is figuring out what products should needlessly be merged with our MMA obsession. A few days ago, we arrived at Magic the Gathering (MTG for short). We played the addictive card game back in high school. We wondered what a set of MTG that spans the entire MMA world might look like. The below cards–featuring the likes of Dana White, Conor McGregor, Greg Jackson, as well as several “MMA memes”–are the result of our mental meandering.

A few notes: We haven’t played Magic in about 10 years so some of the gameplay semantics might not be totally accurate. Also, some of the abilities are for the purposes of chiding MMA as only irreverent CagePotato can. All real photos in the cards come from Getty Images, save for the photo of “Minowaman” Ikuhisa Minowa, which comes from Sherdog. Another card’s image comes from a YouTube screen capture (you’ll know which one).